<u>Solution.</u>

Build a dApp whose main functionalty is digitalize rural business transactions through Cardano´s BlockChain and allow them access to financial products offered by Living Roots Startup.

Main Features:

• Avail financing for themselves.
• Extend chekout financing for their customer.
• Receive and make payments with ADA and Djed in the future.
• Track expenses and transactions.
• Manage orders ad inventory.
• Automate business process.
• Track credit and repayment.
• Connect digitally with the value chain.

User Profile.

The product is initially intended to be used by rural business in the agricultural supply chain, mainly those that sell to farmers, such as input or equipment providers, this rural business act as our lender clients by offering finance to small farmers as an add-on to the goods they sell.

Impact for the user group.

The dApp will be a one-stop solution for the user group "rural agribusiness" to manage their business process in a simple, intuitive and eficcient way.

The product will provide transparency about the transactions and expenses made, the main features of the dApp will allow the users improve their business process, cut administrative cost and serve their customer better.

For example the Extend chekout financing for their customer feature will allow increase the average ticket value and reach out more customers and expand to a new business area such as loans.

Addressing the challenge.

The proposal address the challenge because we´re trying to solve a problem "Lack of formalized credit" that faces many rural business, we as a Living Roots Startup propose a B2B solution that is the development of this dApp.

We want to add value to the Cardano´s ecosystem by creating the dApp, attract users who benefit from it, making transactions with ADA, executing financial contracts in the blockchain and digitalize the transactions of rural business.

We will align with challenge KPIs in this way:

• Building a dApp supporting this business solution.
• Living Roots Startup is a company proposing this Cardano based-solution.
• We will partner with small and medium rural business.
• We will looking for aditional funding from other sources such as VC firms in early stages of a startup.
• This product aims to reduce or saving cost for the rural business and has the potential to increase their revenue due to the features of the dApp.
• We expect increase the % growth in the mainnet/testnet due the use of the dApp.

We will communicate the outcomes and status of the project in our social networks when they are ready(Discord,Telegram,Twitter) and in our Gitbook.

This social media will be communicate through my personal social media.

Twitter: @CrisRo0787

Discord: crisro0787#3293

Linkedin: Cristian Jair Rojas Velez

<u>Main challenges or risks:</u>

Lack of digital literacy among rural business.

Dependence on the use of cash and personal relationships.

Limited connectivity in some rural areas.

<u>Strategies to mitigate them:</u>

Develop the dApp with a user-centered design, that is, design the product based on the needs and preferences of rural businesses, involve the first users in the development of the product.

Provide rural businesses with correct training on the use of the application and personalized technical assistance during this process of adapting to the new technology.

Adapt the product so that the rural business continues to accept cash payments while we establish a stronger relationship through creating value for the client.

Create strategic alliances with mobile service providers, to offer a better service in terms of connectivity and accessibility to information.

<u>Detailed Plan and Timeline.</u>

We identify some key areas and team members required to implement the proposal successfully.

Key Areas and responsible team member:

• Strategy. (CEO)
• Product Management. (Product Manager)
• Product Development. (Devs)
• Financial Planing. (CFO)
• Marketing. (CMO)
• Customer Experience. (CSM)

This key areas play an important role in the implementation of the proposal, each of them will be on charge of certain activities along the roadmap.

<u>Roadmap.</u>

Q3 2022.

Tasks to be carried out:

CEO:

• Hiring and leading the company's executive team.
• Setting strategy and direction.

Product Manager:

• Know and predict what a customer needs through research.
• Creating the positioning of the product to the public.

Devs:

• Work closely with the rest of the startup team especially with the product manager to keep the product in line with the company's strategy.
• Code, design, test, and debug software.

Chief Financial Officer:

• Monitoring expenditures and costs.
• Taking control of the startup's financial planning and risks associated with future goals.
• Design and assist in the creation of financial contracts and financial products offered in the dApp.

Chief Marketing Officer:

• Brand positioning/identity.
• Research and analytics.

Customer Experience Manager:

• Build workflows and processes internally between product management and marketing to cut down onboarding times and for new customers.

Milestones:

CEO:

• Hire each member of the executive team.

Product Manager:

• Design a product that meets the needs of the rural agribusiness.

Devs:

• Build a Minimum Viable Product tha contains the main features such as financial contracts, received and make payments, manage orders and track expenses and transactions.

Chief Financial Officer:

• Create financial contracts to allow agribusiness financing themselves and their customers.

Chief Marketing Officer:

• Create a logo for the brand, oficial social networks.

Customer Experience Manager:

• Create onboarding process for the adquisition of new members.

Deliverables:

Minimun Viable Product.

2 Financial Smart Contracts.(for loan and purchase items)

Logo Living Roots Startup.

Q4 2022.

Tasks to be carried out:

CEO:

• Focusing on the needs of executive team and customers

Product Manager:

• Determine a product pricing strategy based on production costs, market demand and research.

Devs:

• Testing the dAppp and updates before go live.
• Maintaining and monitoring systems when the product go live to minimize disruptions.

Chief Financial Officer:

• Reviewing, analyzing, and reporting on the company's financial data and performance
• Design and implement the business model.

Chief Marketing Officer:

• User acquisition, lead generation, and retention/engagement.
• Product marketing and positioning.

Customer Experience Manager:

• Give customers an experience beyond their expectations to create brand advocates and encourage word-of-mouth referrals.
• Help customers see value in the product quickly by managing product implementation and onboarding.
• Relay any suggestions from customer feedback to internal departments.

Milestones:

Devs:

• Launch the dApp for a First Release to early adopters.

Chief Financial Officer:

• Create the business model.

Chief Marketing Officer:

• Adquisition of the first users "early adopters".

Customer Experience Manager:

• Create an efficient onboarding process.

Deliverables:

Launch of the product, first release.

Budget breakdown. 6 months

Items:

dApp Development. $18000

Salaries Executive team.

• CEO $1500 a month
• Product Manager. $1500 a month
• Chief Financial Officer. $1500 a month
• Chief Marketing Officer.$1250 a month
• Customer Succes Manager.$1250 a month

$42000

Operational costs.( Infrastructure maintenance cost, cloud cost, transportation cost, administrative cost, etc) $6000

Customer Adquisition Cost( Onboarding agribusiness, includes marketing ) $6000

Total : $72,000

if aditional budget is require the executive team wil reduce his salary, besides that we will start working in raise aditional funds for VC or another resources such as incubators.

We think there will be a lot of challenges, but I´m sure the team will be made up of the most professional and skilled people who will know how to overcome the challenges that we face.

<u>LIVING ROOTS.</u>

We´re Living Roots an Agritech and Agri Fintech Startup with the purpose of support small farmers and agribusiness.

We complete the pre-incubation process in Startup Mexico, Startup Mexico isthe leading organization in Mexico in promoting innovation, entrepreneurial culture and economic development both locally and internationally.

Our proposal "Support Small Farmers in Latam" for the "Grow Cardano, Grow Latin America" challenge was voted and funded for fund7.

<u>Team Members.</u>

Cristian Jair Rojas Velez (Founder and CEO).

Relevant Experience:

• Industrial Engineer with orientation in logistics processes.
• Working as farmer growing food in my local community.
• Blockchain enthusiast, currently learning about blockchain development and smart contract development.
• Taking the pioneer program from Atala Prism about decentralized identity.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @CrisRo0787

Discord: crisro0787#3293

Linkedin: Cristian Jair Rojas Velez

I recognize that a team is needed to implement the proposal, for this reason, the first activity to be carried out is hiring the executive team.

From now I will be looking for people with the skills and ideals that align with ours to perform the following positions:

• Product Manager.
• Chief Financial Officer.
• Chief Marketing Officer.
• Customer Succes Manager.

<u>Parnertships:</u>

JOGET.

For the technical development of the dApp we are going to work with Joget.

they work with startups and companies to develop decentralized applications in a simple way.

The joget team made a proposal for fund7 in the "Nation building dApp" challenge.

They were the one with the best score with their proposal "Accelerating Enterprise Adoption".

Working with them certainly contributes to the Cardano ecosystem as well.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Accelerating-Enterprise-Adoption/383332-48088

https://www.joget.com/cardano-blockchain.html

STARTUP MEXICO.

LIIVING ROOTS is part of the Mexican startup community, which allows us to have support in entrepreneurship issues, legal issues, future financing and most importantly networking with other entrepreneurs in Latin America.

We will measure the progress of the project by using KPIs and the Milestones in the detail plan.

The main KPIs will be:

• Number of rural agribusiness register in the dApp.

• Number of small farmers that make a purchase in the dApp.

• Number of credits granted by agribusiness to small farmers.

• Number of credtis granted to agribusiness by Living Roots.

• Average ticket value in a credit purchase.

• Average ticket value in a normal purchase.

• Customer adquisition costs.

• Customer retention rate.

For the definition of done and project success, we think the KPIs must have certain numbers:

• Number of rural agribusiness register in the dApp. > 20

• Number of small farmers that make a purchase in the dApp. > 100

• Number of credits granted by agribusiness to small farmers. > 40

• Number of credtis granted to agribusiness by Living Roots. > 5

• Average ticket value in a credit purchase. > Average ticket value in a normal purchase.

• Customer retention rate. > 70%

All this measurements will be communicated through our official social media and our official gitbook, I will announce this social media as soon as posible through my personal social media.

Twitter: @CrisRo0787

Discord: crisro0787#3293

Linkedin: Cristian Jair Rojas Velez

This proposal is a continuation of the proposal "Support Small Farmers in Latam" from de "Grow Cardano, Grow Latin America" challenge for fund 7.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/384340

This proposal is related to the current one, since the proposed solution was to build a network of small farmers that currently has to do with building a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) of small farmers.

These farmers need to buy inputs and equipment in addition to access to formal credit, the rural agribusinesS that will use the dApp will offer these credits, inputs and equipment to small farmers.